Draft Resolution on the Ukrainian Borotbist Party[1]

Written:Written February 6, 1920Published:First published in 1945 inLenin Miscellany XXXV.

      Printed from the manuscript.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      2nd English Printing,

      Progress Publishers,1971,

      Moscow,Volume 42,

      pages174b-175a.Translated:Bernard IsaacsTranscription\Markup:D. WaltersPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2003).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

TheBorotbists shall be qualified as a party, which, by its
propaganda aimed at splitting the military forces and supporting banditism,
is violating the basic principles of communism, thereby playing directly
into the hands of the Whites and of international imperialism.

Alsoopposed to the interests of the proletariat is their struggle
against the slogan calling for a close alliance with the R.S.F.S.R.

Thewhole policy must be systematically and steadily aimed at the
dissolution of the Borotbists in the near future. To this end, not a single
misdeed on the part of the Borotbists should be allowed to pass without
being immediately and strictly punished. In particular, information should
be collected concerning the non-proletarian and most disloyal nature of the
majority of their party members.

Themoment for their dissolution shall be determined within a short
time by the Politbureau and communicated to the Ukrainian Revolutionary

Committee.[2]

[1]Borotbists—membersof a peasant based left-nationalist party,
Borotba, formed in May 1918 after a split in the Ukrainian Left
Socialist-Revolutionary Party on the basis of supporting soviet power in
Ukraine. So called from the name of the Party’s central organ Borotba
(Struggle). In March 1919 assumed the name of Ukrainian
Socialist-Revolutionary Party of Communist Borotbists, and in August that
of the Ukrainian Communist Party of Borotbists. Its leaders, among others,
were V. Blakitny, G. Grinko and A. Shumsky. For Lenin’s appraisal of the
Borotba Party see pp. 180-181 of this volume.

TheBorotbists twice applied to the Executive of the
Communist International asking to be admitted to membership of the
Comintern and to be recognised as the main communist party in the
Ukraine. The Comintern passed a special decision on this question on
February 26, 1920, proposing to the Borotbists that they dissolve their
party and merge with the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the Ukraine. The
resolution said that the Executive of the Communist International could
only regard the desire to found a second parallel party as an attempt to
split the ranks of the working people.

Thegrowing influence of the Bolsheviks among the
peasantry and the successes of the Soviet government in the Ukraine forced
the Borotbists to decide on voluntary dissolution.

TheFourth Conference of the Communist Party
(Bolsheviks) of the Ukraine, held March 17-23, 1920, agreed to admit the
Borotbists into its ranks, all the newly enrolled members being
reregistered. Eventually, however, many Borotbists resumed their
anti-Soviet activities and headed the struggle of the counter-revolutionary
bourgeois-nationalist elements in the Ukraine.

[2]Themanuscript further contains a note by Lenin reading: “Trotsky and
Rakovsky are instructed, not later than tomorrow, to word this resolution
more accurately and transmit it tomorrow by coded telegraph to the
Ukrainian Revolutionary Committee.”